Coral Gables-based Capital Bank Financial Corp. has filed plans for its private shareholders to cash out, potentially to the tune of $697 million, should the company launch its public offering.

The banking company, formerly known as North American Financial Holdings, announced plans for the IPO in June 2011, saying it could raise up to $300 million in capital by issuing new shares. That would give it an even larger war chest of cash to buy up southeastern banks.

The company last updated its IPO plans in May, and still hasn’t announced a date or a share price. It would be listed on the NASDAQ with the ticker symbol "CBF."

The previous IPO plans didn’t list current shareholders as selling any shares. But, that has changed.

Capital Bank Financial issued an additional public registration statement for its private investors in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing Friday. The company said its private shareholders could up sell to 46.5 million shares – their entire stake in the company – in the offering. At a preliminary price of $15 a share, this could raise up to $697 million. Yet, all of that money would go to the investors, mostly private equity firms, not the company.

Capital Bank Financial CFO Christopher G. Marshall said the new registration statement was made to satisfy a contractual obligation to existing shareholders, and it is not connected to the previously filed IPO plans. The company could not comment further because it’s in the “quiet period” that precedes an IPO.

Capital Bank Financial originally agreed to issue new shares for its $48 million cash and stock acquisition of Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Southern Community Financial Corp., but it revised the deal last month into a $52 million, all-cash purchase. That means it doesn’t have to issue new stock.

Should that deal close, the bank would have about $7.9 billion in assets.

That leaves the question of when Capital Bank Financial will pull the trigger.

The disappointing public offering for Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), combined with subpar performances by many major bank stocks, has slowed down IPO activity for financial companies. Even when Miami-based Burger King Worldwide (NYSE: BKW) went public again in June, it declined to raise capital by issuing new shares.

Unlike other banks, however, many of Capital Bank's assets are either under Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. loss-sharing protection or were purchased below book value as it acquired other banks.